


Brilliant Disguise

by indiefangirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben and Rey Finally Working Their Shit Out, F/M, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, One Shot, Post TLJ, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 19:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13196817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefangirl/pseuds/indiefangirl
Summary: For months, he’s haunted her dreams, stealing away the sanctuary of sleep from her nights. With each nightmare, she relives those fateful moments in the throne room and dreams of his red lightsaber stabbing through her chest. Until one night, the Force bond reopens, forcing both Rey and Ben to face their demons—and perhaps create a new destiny.A little one shot full of lots of angst, fluff, confrontation, and of course, Reylo cuddles.





	Brilliant Disguise

    It always starts the same way.

  
    _She’s kneeling on the cold, glossy red floor of the throne room, fear seeping into her mind like a cloud of darkness. Her eyes drift up to the pitch black ones of the man standing above her. Long curls of dark hair frame his face, and the ghost of a dimple that only appears when he smiles, faintly marks his cheek. In his dark cloak, he reminds her of a handsome, brave knight off to save his princess, like the one she read about as a girl in a stolen storybook on Jakku. But this...this is less like a fairytale and more like a nightmare. The question of Ben Solo or Kylo Ren no longer matters now, because he has become something else entirely: her executioner._

_  
“I know what I have to do,” he finally says, keeping his gaze locked on her._

_  
He is going to kill her. She is going to die at the hands of this monster, because she was too trusting, too loving, too full of hope to see that he was too far gone to be saved._

_  
“Ben,” she manages to whisper, a sad, last ditch attempt to try to turn him, to try to remind of him who he one was._

_  
But then a lightsaber ignites, the roaring sound ripping through the silence of the room. Rey grimaces, steeling herself for the end, but the blow never comes. Instead, the invisible force holding her in place suddenly lets go, replaced by dead air, and she drops to the ground with a thud. Breathing hard, she whips around, and the sight that greets her leaves her speechless: her blue lightsaber, stabbing straight through Snoke’s chest, his eyes drained of life._

_  
Ben...he did it. He’s turned to the light. Somehow, she’s been right all along. There’s still good left in him._

_  
She turns back around, a smile bursting onto her face like the hope in her heart. But it wilts away as she meets Ben’s gaze. His lips are pulled back in a hard line, his eyes darkening with cold determination._

_  
“I have to destroy it all,” he whispers, slowly moving his hand to the saber hilt at his belt. And then, in a blink, he suddenly ignites the lightsaber, the crackling red beam illuminating his pale face. “I’m sorry.” His voice is detached, unfeeling._

_  
She barely has time to breath before he strikes, stabbing the saber right through her chest. Her world becomes pain, raw and all consuming, and everything’s slipping through her fingers and there’s nothing she can do and—_

  
    A scream rips through her lungs, and she jolts up right, violently thrown out of sleep. But something catches her, warm and solid, as she sits up. For a moment, she can’t help but sink it to it, her body shaking in a combination of cold and sheer terror.

  
    “I’ve got you now,” a deep, gruff voice whispers, a strong hand tracing soothing circles across her back. “You’re safe.”

  
    The voice is almost hypnotic, comforting and gentle, and she feels herself nodding along with it. Tears and cold sweat blur her vision as she glances up, still half caught in the dream. It’s not something that’s caught her, but someone. Fear makes her freeze as she realizes just who is holding her, replacing any sort of comfort she felt moments ago. It’s him, the monster from her dream. The murderer. _Kylo Ren_.

    Panic sets her body and mind on fire, and crying out, she ferociously pushes away from the man who haunts her nightmares, calling out to her lightsaber. In an instant, it flies from the bedside table right into her hand, and she ignites it with a snarl.

  
    “Rey!” The monster in front of her yells in desperation. “Stop! You’re having a bad dream!”

  
    Breathing hard, she blinks in confusion, trying to process his words. _Bad dream. Just a bad dream_. Glancing around, she realizes the red throne room, the death and destruction…it’s gone. It’s been replaced by her simple chambers, the near empty room dancing with shadows in the night air. She’s back on her Resistance issue cot, the stiff wool blankets damp with cold sweat and tousled with sleep so they just barely cover her waist. And sitting on the edge of the bed...not a monster. Just a man.

  
    Slowly letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, her trembling fingers find the activator switch on her saber, pressing down and extinguishing the fierce blue beam. A small sigh of relief comes from across the cot, and glancing up, she meets the inky black eyes of her unexpected visitor.

  
    For a moment, they regard each other, neither one speaking a word or moving a muscle. He’s changed since she last saw him, the months since they’re last connection through the Force Bond stretching between like an unspoken wall. His hair’s grown a little longer, almost long enough for the tips of his dark curls to brush his shoulders, and more unkempt, falling wildly across his face and over his eyes. She also can’t help noticing how the boyish edge to his appearance has faded, and in its place...he looks undeniably like a man, no longer a child hiding behind a mask. The thought makes her glance down at herself, self consciously trying to picture what he sees in her. Her hair has fallen out of her usual half updown, falling just past her shoulders in loose waves, and her thin white shift clings to her tan skin, still damp with sweat and revealing god knows what.

  
    Feeling her cheeks grow warm, she quickly pulls the covers up around her, ignoring the small smile of amusement from the man in front of her. It’s then that it suddenly hits her. Memories, not from her dream, but from an even worse nightmare, flood her mind in flashes. Screams and hatred, silence and forgiveness. A moment of vulnerability, two bare hands reaching out to each other in desperation, in understanding. Their backs pressing into each other, the most raw show of trust, and a red and blue saber raising in unison, fighting for something neither of them had truly grasped yet. And his hand, stretched out to her, his words cutting deep inside of her like knives, burning their beautiful, fragile web of trust in a matter of seconds. Betrayal. Hurt. Loneliness. Shame—for believing he could be something that everyone else knew he never could.

  
    Finally, he breaks the tense silence, reaching out to her cautiously with a gloved hand. “Rey—”

  
    But she cuts him off, instinctively pulling away from him. “Stay away from me,” she whispers, her voice dripping with disgust.

  
    He sighs, his hand falling back into his lap. For a moment, she can see the hurt in her eyes, but it’s soon replaced by cold stoicism. And once again, the room is engulfed in overwhelming silence. Rey closes her eyes, willing him to disappear, to never come back so she doesn’t have to feel like this anymore. So she can go back to pretending to forget.

    But of course, that would be too damn easy.

  
    “What were you dreaming of?” His voice is oddly soft and gentle, pulling at the loneliness inside of her the same way it did in the hut on Ach-To all those nights ago.

    Slowly, she opens her eyes again. “Go. Away,” she grits out, trying to turn her words into shards of glass, to cut him like he did her.

    “I can’t,” he says softly, absentmindedly picking at the frayed edge of her blanket. “You know I don’t have any more control over this than you do. You and I—we’re stuck with each other until the Force ends our connection.”

    Huffing out a breath, she throws the blankets over herself, nestling back into the pillows. “Doesn’t mean we have to talk.”

    “What were you dreaming of?” he asks again, his voice taking on a harder edge.

    _Did he not hear a word I just said?_

    Sitting upright, she looks him directly in the eyes. “You really want to know what I was dreaming of?” She doesn’t wait for a response. “ _You_. You’re what I was dreaming of,” she practically snarls. “It’s always the same dream...the throne room, me on my knees, you betraying Snoke—”

    “But I don’t just kill Snoke, do I?” His eyes bore into hers, partially hidden by strands of dark hair.

    “No,” Rey whispers, glancing down at her hands, suddenly finding she can’t meet his gaze anymore. “No, you ignite your lightsaber, and you stab me right through the chest. You betray me too.”

    And as she says the words, she suddenly understands what the dream means. Because in that throne room, Snoke wasn’t the only one betrayed. She put _everything_ on the line for him...surrendered herself to the enemy, fought by his side, risked her own life, and he still turned on her. And they both know it.

    He suddenly pushes himself off the bed, his long legs carrying him the short distance across the room. “That’s not fair,” he nearly yells, all calmness long gone from his voice. He whips around to face her. “I didn’t betray you, you betrayed _me_. You gave me all that bullshit about not being alone, but when it came down to it, you picked those Rebel scum over me. Over us.”

    “Because you gave me no other choice!” Her feet find the cool concrete floor, and she stands up. “You knew that I couldn’t follow you down that path, and you...you chose it anyway!” Blinking away the promise of tears, she takes a step towards him. “I gave you a chance, Ben. When nobody else believed that you were worth saving, that there could be good left in you...I did. And you threw it all away.”

  
    “Threw it all way?” He closes the distance between them, suddenly towering over her. “Threw it all way? I gave you everything! I murdered my master for you, turned against everything I’ve ever believed in, offered you the _galaxy_ for fuck’s sake!” His voice echoes through the room, so loud it nearly makes her wince. “You are the one who threw it all way, not me.”

    Almost standing on her tippy toes, she leans forward so their faces are mere inches apart. “Yeah, well sorry I didn’t want a future with a monster,” she snarls, baring her teeth like an animal.

     For a moment, they stay like that, their noses nearly brushing, both breathing hard. His eyes drift up and down her face once, still contorted with hatred, and then he suddenly breaks away, turning and stepping into the shadows of the room. Finding that she can’t stand there by herself, overwhelmed by emotion, her trembling legs carry her back to the cot. She sits down slowly, sinking into the comfort of the blankets.

    She’s gone too far this time, and she knows it.

    “I lied,” she finally whispers. “I don’t always have that dream. It changes.” She glances down at her hands, folded limply in her lap. “Sometimes I dream of Crait, of arriving too late and finding everyone dead...Finn, Poe, General Leia...corpses disappearing under layers of snow and salt and death.” She shudders at the thought, remembering every time she’s woken up screaming from that dream, unable to close her eyes without seeing their cold, lifeless eyes. “Sometimes I dream of the throne room, of Snoke torturing me, but it—it never ends.” Her voice cracks, and she can no longer hold back the tears. “There’s no purpose to it, just endless pain and suffering and—”

    “I should’ve stopped him sooner.” He’s still not facing her, but she can see his gloved hands curling into fists. “I should’ve never let him hurt you.”

    She sniffs, using the flat of her hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “But the worse one,” she whispers hoarsely, “is about you. You’re kneeling in front of me, and we’re surrounded by Resistance members. Everyone’s there, even General Leia, screaming insults at you, calling for your death. And then Finn, he hands me my lightsaber, tells me that I deserve to get to kill you.” She doesn’t want to keep going, to describe it, but she knows she has to. “And I don’t want to, at least not at first, but then suddenly this wave of darkness and hatred comes over me, and before I can stop myself, I’m striking you down,” Glancing up, she realizes that Ben still hadn’t moved a muscle.

    “But the second I cut through you with the saber,” she continues, trying to swallow down the shakiness in her voice, “I realize that I’m the murderer. I’m the monster. And then everyone disappears, and it’s just me and you. And you die, right in front of my eyes, and you’re never angry, you just...you just look at me. And I know I’m truly alone.”

    Her voice trails off, replaced by nothing but the sound of her own breath and the night breeze drifting through her room. He’s still silent, still standing with his back turned to her, so close, yet somehow so far away.

    “Ben,” she chokes out through her tears, “please say something.”

    He finally turns around, meeting her gaze with somber eyes. “What do you want me to say? That you’re not alone?” Swallowing, he takes a step closer to her. “You already know you’re not. But you and I...we’re stuck. There’s no fixing this.” He gives her a sad smile. “I’m not like one of those ships you’re so good at taking apart and putting back together.”

    Sniffing, she looks back down at her hands. “I know.”

    It’s just not what she wants to hear.

    She feels him move across the room, the bed dipping down under his weight when he sits down next to her. A small sigh escapes his lips, so soft she barely notices it. “I had trouble sleeping for a while after I left Luke’s temple.”

    Glancing up at him, she notices how small he seems in the moment, his head bowed down.

    “Every night, I dreamt of him killing me, and every time I could nothing to stop it. Every night, that green saber would slash me to pieces, and I...all I could do was watch.” He shakes his head quietly, as if trying to shake off the memory itself. “And then one day the nightmares suddenly stopped, and no matter what happened, or what I did, I could sleep through the night. Until,” he whispers, “until the throne room. Since then I haven’t gotten one full night of rest.”

    Studying his face carefully, she suddenly notices the dark circles under his eyes, matching her own marks of sleepless nights.

    “Unlike yours,” he continues softly, “the dreams that haunt my nights never change. It’s always the same one.” He pauses, biting the inside of his cheek.

    “What do you dream of?” she asks, pressing him to keep going.

    “You. Always you.” His voice is barely a whisper, nearly lost in the night air. “We’re back in that damn throne room and you’re kneeling in front of me and Snoke, he’s…he’s in my head,” he chokes out, running a head through his hair. “And when he tells me to kill you, it’s like I’m not in control of my own body. My saber ignites, but in my head I’m screaming for myself to stop, to _save_ you. But I can’t. I can’t do anything except watch as the saber goes straight through your chest, and the look on your face...you trusted me, and you just seem so shocked that I would hurt you.” He finally looks up at her, his dark eyes glassy with the threat of tears. “I think that’s what always gets me, that you’re the only one who doesn’t seem to expect evil from me, and I...I just destroy that.”

    For a moment, she sees the scared boy underneath a man’s skin. He seems so crushed, so lonely, so utterly _lost_.

    “Ben,” she whispers gently. Reaching out, her fingers find the smooth leather of his gloved hand, holding on tight.

    It’s not quite right, but for now, it’s enough. It’ll have to be enough.

    His eyes drift down to their intertwined hands, her small tanned fingers barely covering the full expanse of his hand. For a moment, she’s sure he’s going to grab her hand back, whisper her name, do something to let her know that she’s not crazy to feel this way, to still see the buried light in side of him. But instead, he carefully slides his hand out from underneath hers, suddenly standing up.

    “I should,” he clears his throat, “let you get back to sleep.”

    Why does he have to be so difficult?

    Rey stands up, taking his hand again, gently tugging to get him to turn back to her. “Ben,” she whispers, “stay.”

    He looks at her cautiously. They both know what she’s asking. It’s more than just a simple word. What she’s asking...it has the potential to change _everything_.

    But in this moment, she doesn’t care. She knows what she wants, and she wants him to _stay_. And maybe, just maybe, it could be as simple as that.

    “Please,” she tries again, “please just stay.”

    And this time, when she pulls on his hand, he lets her lead him back to the cot. Sitting back down, she glances at him, realizing that he’s still standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed, unsure of what to do.

    “Ben, it’s just a bed.” She gives him a small smile. “Maybe we’ll both sleep better this way.” Placing her hand lightly on the other half of the bed, she motions for him to come lie down.

    Finally, he slides off his boats and gloves, leaving them on a neat pile in the floor. His hand grasp the edge of his black tunic, and then he stops, glancing over at Rey. “Umm...do you mind? It’s kinda heavy and—”

    “I’ve already seen you shirtless,” she cuts him off, biting back a laugh. “It’s not new to me.”

    He nods once, and then pulls the tunic up and over his head. Despite what she said, the sight of his bare chest, pale skin and defined muscles suddenly exposed, leaves her breathless. Feeling the blood rush to her cheeks, she nestles into the bed before he can notice her reaction. Moments later, he joins her, the bed creaking and shifting under his sudden weight. For a second, she’s overcome by just how huge he is, his broad shoulders nearly taking up the entire width of the cot. The two of them won’t fit, at least not like this.

    “Um,” she starts, biting her bottom lip, “maybe if you, uh, turn on your side and I,” she rolls over so her back is facing him, “turn like this…”

    But she doesn’t have the words to finish her thought, because suddenly his arms are circling around her small form, pulling her close to his solid chest. The warmth radiating off his body is almost overwhelming, and she can’t help but let out a little sigh of comfort.

    “Yeah,” she murmurs, “exactly like that.”

    He’s so close that his breath tickles the back of her neck, and when he tucks his head against her own, a few strands of raven hair fall across her cheek. They fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces from two entirely different sets that somehow click together.

    Closing her eyes, she breaths him in. He smells like leather and fire, and like pine trees in the dead of winter. But even with his body and smell and warmth enveloping her, she finds she still can’t sleep, can’t bear the thought of facing what demons decide to haunt her tonight.

    “Ben,” she whispers, the words tumbling out before she can stop them. “I’m scared.”

    And it’s the truth, despite how much she tries to hide from it. She’s scared shitless, and this whole fearless, strong warrior front...she’s not sure how much longer she can keep it up.

    He shifts against her, his legs entwining with her own. “I am too.” He reaches out and takes her hand, sliding each of his strong, calloused fingers between her own. “But I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

   “Neither am I,” she manages to whisper back. Snuggling against him, she closes her eyes tight and finally, finally lets sleep wash over her.

    She dreams of the throne room. But this time, when she turns around to face him, it’s with her hand reached out. And he takes it, pulling her up and off her knees. The last thing she remembers is them running out of the room hand in hand, leaving behind the death and destruction, and sprinting headlong towards an uncertain future. Towards a home.

 

 


End file.
